Darkness.

That's all there is for a boy like me.

I'm lost, drowning in his light. The light calls the darkness, you cannot have shadow without light nor can you have light without shadow. That is a basic scientific law.

But I am the darkness. He is the light, the unforgiving and blinding light that I long to grasp in my fingertips, to press my mouth to, to spend the night with, warm and finally complete and found.

But that is not what is meant for me.

I am nothing, that's what Joseph was always telling me. Joseph was my big brother, and he took care of me when I was young, because our parents had died early in my life. Joseph hated me, and blamed me for my parents' death. He'd send me out into the streets to sell myself to old perverted men, and I hated him for that.

And I also loved him, the way brothers should. I looked up to him. He smoked, he didn't care what other people thought of him, he would counter what you said even if he agreed with it…

Joseph was my idol. My stone god, my unforgotten dream, my everlasting goal.

And he hated me.

How it hurts to have your hero smack you, cut you, pound you, push other people onto you. No one understands that. They all talk about how their parents would hurt them, physically and-slash-or mentally, but were their parents ever their idols?

No.

Joseph was a gambler, which is why I frown on Race's habits. I don't tell him to stop or anything, but I frown on them. Race is a better gambler than Joseph was though. Much better.

Joseph got in trouble with some big shots. He borrowed money from them, bet, lost. He couldn't pay them back. He ran from them, all over the city, dragging me behind him, but eventually they caught up with him. The broke his collarbone, his nose and both his legs, then left him in an alleyway to bleed.

I was there beside him.

I didn't know what to do. I was nothing, wasn't I? What could nothing do for its dark idol?

Joseph stared at me with dark eyes, my own dark eyes. He looked me straight in the eye. 'Isaac…' he told me, 'you get outta heah and find someplace to stay. Someplace where they c'n take care of ya. Bettah then I ever could.'

I started to cry and he told me to stop crying. 'Don't cry fer a bastahd like me, Isaac. Yer bettah off without me.'

Then he sent me off. He died in the alleyway. And I was alone in New York.

An Asian immigrant, dressed in pink and carrying a load of papers under his arm, found me, and took me to the Manhattan Newsboy Lodging House. I was welcomed there. When I told them me story, they nodded, and gave me sympathy.

They're my brothers now.

Not my idols. But my brothers.

Being on the run from the thugs that were after my brother left me with a light paranoia. The boys started calling me 'Skittery', a nickname I rather enjoyed, thinking of it as a sign that I was accepted by the newsies.

Not a year after I joined the newsies, Itey Asarro came in, dragging a bleeding, sobbing, hazel-eyed dream behind him. Daniel Riccio, he called himself.

They called him Snitch.

I called him perfect.

I fell for Snitch the first time I saw him. There's no doubt about that. But Snitch is light and I am darkness, plagued by my worship of my dead, dark idol, my brother Joseph.

But darkness calls light, the way light calls darkness. Snitch, being light, will discover his need for me someday. And I will go running to him, my darkness fading in his light, and we will envelop each other in our want, our desire, our necessity. We'll drown in it, but the drowning will be worth it.

Darkness. Light. Two things needed by all.

I am darkness. I need no darkness.

But there is a light at the end of my tunnel. I reach for it, and hope that I will find it within my reach.

My idol of light.

***AUTHOR'S NOTE***

Wow…another random fic. SKITTERY! ^^;;;

Um…I'm working on the last chapter of How Shall I Decide? But all the stuff I wanna get in there will make it longer than any of the other chapters. So yeah…but Im working on it, so don't worry!

I'm also working on Behind the Mirror. God, I'm writing too many stories at once…and I still have to finish that Frankenstein essay…ah well. **shrugs** That's all. See you guys around.